


A Stitch In Time

by muse_in_absentia



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fashion & Models, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, SO MUCH FLUFF, and low self esteem, but mostly just fashion, grantaire has good friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:27:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24019741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/muse_in_absentia/pseuds/muse_in_absentia
Summary: How to make friends and win boys over with the use of responsibly sourced, fair trade fabrics.
Relationships: Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 83
Collections: Les Mis Big Bang: Quarantine Edition





	A Stitch In Time

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eetrelibre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eetrelibre/gifts).



> This was written for the [Les Mis Big Bang: Quarantine Edition](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/LesMisQuarantineBigBang)
> 
> Thank you to my partner in crime [eetrelibre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eetrelibre/pseuds/eetrelibre) who did the amazing art! Go check it out [HERE](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24025915)
> 
> A truly huge thank you to my betas [surefireshore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/surefireshore/pseuds/surefireshore) and [candando_siempre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/cantando_siempre/pseuds/cantando_siempre). This wouldn't have been the same without you guys!
> 
> Lastly, this is my first real attempt at writing these guys, and breaking into this fandom. I won't be my last. Fair warning. :P

The whirring clack of the sewing machine had become soothing over the years, a constant companion when Grantaire was at his lowest, a way to stay in control of something, even something as simple as his own wardrobe. He hadn’t planned on turning it into a career, but a project in textiles during his university art classes had morphed into a love that he hadn’t been able to leave behind. And he still got to use his drawing skills in rendering designs. 

Now, he finally had an offer for a real show, not just his web-based sales and custom work. In three months. And he was nowhere near ready. There weren’t enough designs. He didn’t have enough models. He didn’t have enough time. He had been fighting down panic for the last two weeks and was slowly losing the battle. 

The organza in his hand puckered under the needle, and he swore, immediately taking his foot off the pedal and feeding the material out of the machine, examining if he would be able to rip out the seam or if the whole thing was ruined. 

The thread was fine, hand-dyed to match the material, and thankfully, there were only a few inches that had been damaged. He grabbed the seam ripper at his side and began picking out the stitches, one millimeter at a time, making sure not to catch any of the threads of the fabric. It was painstaking, but he kept at it until he had repaired the damage, setting the fabric carefully down on top of one of his dress forms and scrubbing a hand across his face. 

“Hey, R, you okay?” Eponine asked from the machine across the room, where she was starting on another one of his designs. 

“Of course,” he laughed, sounding hollow to his own ears, and knowing she’d hear it as well. “Why?” 

“Because that’s the third time you’ve had to take apart that organza, and usually you’re much more careful with the delicate shit.” 

“Well, it’s probably better that I crash and burn now, rather than a week from the showing when I still have only half enough garments and a third enough models.” 

The machine stopped, and the shop space got eerily quiet. Grantaire forced himself not to move, not wanting to see the soft look on Eponine’s face. It was a softness that he had earned after years of slowly chipping his way through her bravado, sharing his own insecurities in exchange for her vulnerabilities until they learned how to be gentle with each other when no one was looking. A softness that he often received when she couldn’t decide how to navigate the landmines of his anxieties and low self-esteem. When there was a grain of substance to his bullshit fears. 

He needed her to be harsh with him and keep him moving instead of wallowing. Regret for his outburst immediately welled up at the back of his throat, threatening to burst out with more words, digging the hole of procrastination and anxiety deeper until the nerves started falling over his head, burying him alive. 

Instead of the gentle encouragement he expected, she snorted, her chair scraping back against the pale blue linoleum floor that he had specifically installed because it was easier to spot dropped pins on. He liked to work barefoot when alone, and missing pins were his kryptonite. “As if we don’t have a rather large group of codependent, incredibly pretty friends who wouldn’t all jump at the chance to model for you,” Eponine said, forcing him from his reverie. 

Grantaire startled. He hadn’t actually thought of asking his friends for help. Most of them didn’t even know he had been given this opportunity. He had tried to keep it that way on purpose, although he suspected that Eponine had told Cosette. But even if he had thought of asking them, there were a myriad of reasons why using them as his models might not be in his best interest. 

“Maybe,” he conceded, frowning, but sitting back down at his machine, not picking back up the organza. He could work on the delicate stuff when his brain had settled back out and wasn’t making his hands shake anymore. “But that would require me telling them about the upcoming show.” 

“Oh, no, I’ve already done that,” Eponine replied casually, waving a hand at him in dismissal. “I knew you weren’t going to, so I took care of it for you.” 

“You did what?” he hissed, dropping a roll of fine tulle ribbon. The pale silver unspooled like his thoughts, tangling all over the floor, ready to trip him up if he let them. 

“Did you honestly think that I was going to let you achieve something this big and not tell our friends, who all want to support and congratulate you?” 

“Yes, actually. At least, I was hoping you would.” He leaned over, nearly upsetting his chair, and snatched the roll of tulle up off the floor, picking a few dropped pins out of it. When Eponine didn’t say anything for a long moment, he sighed. “I don’t know if I should thank you, or strangle you, so for now I’m going to ignore that you said anything. We both need to get back to work.” 

Grabbing a magnet full of pins, Grantaire shoved himself to his feet and nudged a pile of satin off a dress form and onto the floor. He draped a cropped suit jacket over the form in its place. The jacket had been sitting neglected for the last three days while he figured out how he wanted to tackle the embellishments, and he was finally ready to try and work it out. 

He could practically hear Eponine grind her teeth behind him as the satin hit the floor, and he knew he should care, but it was hard to make himself care when he was so sure he was going to fail before his creations even made it to the runway. 

The fabric hissed as Eponine scooped it off the floor with a huff, elbowing him in the side in the process. Glaring at him she rolled it over a cardboard bolt for proper storage, which is what he should have done in the first place, but that always felt like so much work just to have to unroll it again. 

“Can you at least pretend you care about this amazing opportunity you have?” 

“I suppose I can pretend, just for you.” 

“I wish you didn’t have to pretend,” Eponine grumbled, setting the freshly rolled bolt of satin onto the neatly stacked pile of other bolts of fabric they hadn’t gotten to yet. 

“Yeah,” Grantaire answered, pinning tulle to the jacket. “So do I.” 

They worked in silence for a time, and Grantaire was starting to feel satisfied with the pattern the tulle was making, despite free-handing it, when Eponine spoke again, nearly causing him to inhale the mouthful of pins he was carefully holding. 

“Why didn’t you want to tell anyone, anyway?” 

“Because not everyone approves of the field I’ve accidentally gotten myself into,” Grantaire said, or tried to say, around the pins in his mouth. 

“I hate when you talk around pins,” Eponine said back, frowning at him, but he just grinned back at her, refusing to take the pins out of his mouth or repeat himself. He was finally making progress, and he wasn’t about to stop working until the jacket was finished and he could knock one item off his rather immense to-do list, at least twelve items of which he couldn’t even start until he heard back about models. 

“Besides, you know that Enjolras would be proud of you no matter what, right?” 

“The fact that you knew exactly who I was referring to does little to corroborate your statement.” The tips of the pins were pricking his tongue as he spoke, little grounding taps of pain, a discomfort that had grown into a comfort. A sense of productivity, of familiarity. 

The ribbon was slowly filling in the space on the jacket, and it was slowly filling in the spaces between Grantaire’s frayed nerves. The more progress he could see, the easier his breathing came. Slowly, his focus narrowed to just the fabric between his fingers, the pins shifting from lip to ribbon, the ache in his feet from standing still so long. He lost all track of time and ambient noise, and simply assumed Eponine had gotten back to work when he didn’t allow the conversation to continue. They had been working together for long enough that she knew how he got when he focused and should be grateful he managed to reach that state despite the buzzing in his brain insisting there was no possible way he could pull this off. 

As the number of pins he was holding dwindled, and he had to replenish them from first the magnet by his side, and eventually from the box of them in the notions cabinet, even the buzzing in his head stilled. After what could have been hours, minutes, days later, he spit the last of the pins out and stood back to see what he had done. 

“It’s stunning, R,” Eponine said, arching her back in her seat, the movement catching his attention and slowly dragging him back to the real world. She wasn’t wrong. The tulle filled the whole jacket in a tight, geometric pattern, and it would pop in three dimensions once it was stitched down. After that, the lining would still need to be put in, but it was a large amount of progress. More than he had expected to make in one day, if he was honest with himself. 

“You could leave the stitching for Jehan to do tomorrow, if you wanted,” Eponine continued, cracking her knuckles simply by stretching out her fingers, a hazard of too much detail work at one time. “See if you can figure out the sleeve embellishments on the blue monstrosity.” 

The blue monstrosity was one of the mostly finished gowns, so named for the sheer amount of real estate the skirt took up in the tiny shop. He had been meaning to bead the sleeves for weeks, but he hadn’t been able to get the design just right. 

Blinking against the influx of colors and movement now that he had stepped back and lost his tunnel vision, Grantaire took a deep breath. “I... could do that,” he said finally, hating to give up control over the jacket, but knowing that it was the smartest course of action. 

Clearly Eponine had been expecting him to fight her on the suggestion, because her eyes went wide and she flashed a razors edge of a grin at him. “Wow, I never thought I’d see the day you willingly let go of work without one of us having to pry it from your sleeping fingers while you weren’t looking.” 

He chuckled. “Trust me, it’s a wrench, but I do actually want to finish on time. Even I can admit I need help once in a while.” 

“Oh, good, then maybe you won’t kill me.” 

Grantaire froze, chest going tight around the air he suddenly couldn’t get enough of. Eponine was never apologetic or concerned about his opinion of her actions unless she had fucked up one of his garments. “What did you do?” he hissed, forcing himself to take a long slow breath before he started spiraling. He trusted Eponine, and as long as he kept reminding himself of that, he could continue breathing. 

Before she had a chance to answer him, however, a sharp knock came at the door to the shop, just one hard rap. 

“Something that needed doing,” Eponine answered, getting up to open the door. “I’ll see you tomorrow, R,” she called, before traitorously slipping outside and leaving a very puzzled-looking Enjolras standing in her place. 

“Fuck you, Eponine,” Grantaire muttered to himself, before plastering on a huge smile and gesturing for Enjolras to come in. “What did Eponine say to you to get you to set foot in the world of high fashion?” he asked by way of greeting. 

“She said you needed to talk to me,” Enjolras said, looking around the shop with an unreadable expression on his face. 

Grantaire snorted and dropped into one of the work chairs. “I wish she had told me about what.” 

That pulled Enjolras up short from where he was poking at one of the dress forms with a frown on his face. “You didn’t ask her to call me here?” 

“I didn’t even realize she called you. I was focused.” 

Grantaire wished he could parse the look on Enjolras’ face, but Enjolras refused to look at him. Instead, he continued his inspection of the shop, poking at fabrics, notions, trims, even the scraps that inevitably littered the floor after a day of work. There was something deliberate about the way he moved from one item to the next, focusing his entire attention on it, then abruptly moving on. Grantaire got distracted watching him, before he remembered that he should probably at least talk to him. 

“Would you like a tour? Or is this too high brow for you?” 

Enjolras stopped exploring and turned to face Grantaire, eyes pinched at the corners in a way that Grantaire related to the days when Enjolras used to get distracted by some project or other and forget that sleep was a thing that even he needed to do. He hadn’t seen that look in quite some time, and he immediately wanted to smooth out the little lines between Enjolras’ eyes with his thumb. Or his lips. Whichever he could get away with without embarrassing them both. 

“I would love a tour,” came the surprising answer, Enjolras closing his eyes against the words, as if it pained him to give them freely. 

“I was fucking with you, Enjolras, you don’t have to pretend to be interested for my sake.” 

There was a long moment where Enjolras just stood there, eyes still closed, mouth a fine line, shoulders tight enough that Grantaire could see the tension from where he was sitting halfway across the room. Then, finally, he dropped into Eponine’s empty work chair. “I’m not pretending to be interested,” he said, eyes opening to stare directly at Grantaire. “I can be happy for a friend’s success without having to approve of what that success is in. I’m not twenty anymore.” 

Grantaire laughed, startled at the acknowledgement. “It’s true. You’ve mellowed. Honestly, I wasn’t exactly worried about you not approving, or not being happy for me, or any of that shit. Mostly I was thinking that a lot of it would simply be technical jargon that would bore the hell out of you. But I could show you a couple of the finished pieces, as a compromise.” 

“You’d let me see your work before the show?” Enjolras sounded startled, and almost pleased, which left a strange buzzing in Grantaire’s brain. Hope tasted funny at the back of his throat, and he swallowed it down, sharp and bitter. 

“Were you planning on sitting through a real runway show just to see the finished products then?” Grantaire asked before he could stop himself, unable to keep his mouth shut. 

“I think we all are,” Enjolras answered softly, still watching Grantaire. “We do all want to support you. Even me. Even though you’re expounding on a problematic institution of promotion –” 

“Enjolras, please. Don’t. This is why I assumed you wouldn’t want to be there. Not because I believe you wouldn’t support me through anything, which you’d do for any of your friends. That’s who you are. But because I wouldn’t force that sort of setting on you for anything. Knowing that you still respect me enough to _want_ to support me is more than enough.” 

Silence fell for a long moment, and Grantaire was starting to worry that he had offended him when Enjolras slumped in his seat, the tension in his shoulders draining away as he dropped his head into his hands before finally speaking. 

“I know. But I really want to be able to do this for you.” 

“Why, though?” Grantaire asked, rolling his chair the few meters across the floor so he was nearly knee to knee with Enjolras. “No one expects it of you except you. No one will be disappointed in you if you don’t make yourself support a, quite frankly, ghastly institution, just because one of your friends happened to fall into it entirely by accident.” 

Enjolras didn’t say anything for long enough that Grantaire was starting to suspect that he didn’t have a real answer beyond wanting to support his friends. When he did finally speak, it wasn’t to answer Grantaire, which he didn’t really expect anyway. 

“If you think the whole institution of fashion is so awful, then why do this?” 

Grantaire laughed bitterly. “Because I’m good at it. It took me a long time, and a lot of shouting from Eponine, to admit it, but I’m good at it. And because the best way to change a system is by being really good at it, and then not doing what anyone thinks you should.” 

Frowning, Enjolras sat up straighter in his chair, nearly tipping over when the wheels skidded out from under him at the abrupt movement. “What do you mean by that?” 

There was a time in his life Grantaire would have been smug, or at least self-satisfied at being able to show off his work, but now he was just tired, stressed, and behind schedule. “Let me give you a tour after all.” He stood and held out a hand, which Enjolras took, allowing himself to be pulled to his feet. 

He was no longer surprised Enjolras didn’t shy away from contact, since they had known each other for too long for that to still shock Grantaire. But when Enjolras didn’t let go, gently squeezing their fingers together casually, like he did it every day, that startled him a great deal. 

Grantaire was starting to think this whole encounter was a stress-induced hallucination, but he smiled to himself. At least it was a pleasant one, unlike that one about the giant moth chasing him through the catacombs that he’d had last week. 

“You aren’t going to turn into a moth, are you?” he asked before he could stop himself. 

“What?” 

“Nothing. Right. Tour. On your right, the dress form that you were so casually judging for being shaped like your stereotypical runway model, one of many _adjustable_ dress forms that I can set to the size of most models. No, before you say anything, they don’t come easily in plus sizes, but they do make a good starting point.” Grantaire paused, but Enjolras didn’t say anything, just squeezed Grantaire’s hand, which he still hadn’t let go of. “Okay. Well, on your left is the pile of untouched fabrics I haven’t had the chance to get to yet, because I am alarmingly behind schedule. They are all sustainably and responsibly sourced, from reputable companies. Let me tell you, that was the hardest part, because some of these had to be custom made.” 

Enjolras reached out with his free hand and ran one finger along the cuff of the jacket Grantaire had spent the afternoon working on, almost as if he could feel the difference in the fabric. Grantaire smiled gently, glad Enjolras wasn’t looking at him to see it. The air in the shop felt lighter, and he was breathing easier than he had been all week. Grantaire knew he would have to assess this continuing problem of basing his mental wellbeing on Enjolras’ approval, but for right now it was working , so he wasn’t going to look at it too hard until the next time it failed him. 

“Can I see your designs?” Enjolras asked, sounding hesitant in a way that Grantaire wasn’t used to and didn’t like. 

“Yeah, sure, if you’d like.” 

Finally letting go of Grantaire’s hand, Enjolras smiled at him, a small, hopeful, little thing that had Grantaire listing towards him for a moment. “I really would.” 

Turning away from that smile, Grantaire went over to the corkboard he had the current sketches he was working from tacked up on and opened the small drawer in the desk beneath it, pulling out a battered sketchbook. He held it for a moment, letting go of the old fear of letting anyone see his drawings, a residual film on his mental state left over from the critiques of university that always left him feeling subpar. Most of the time he knew better now, although that had taken a lot of years and a lot of encouragement from his friends. 

Handing the sketchbook over, Grantaire sat down at his machine, fiddling with the presser foot, and accidentally popping it off the machine. 

“R,” Enjolras breathed, and even Grantaire could hear the awe in his voice. “These are amazing.” 

Glancing over, Grantaire saw that Enjolras was stuck on a rendering of a pale yellow ballgown drawn onto a model that looked unsurprisingly like Bahorel. He hadn’t meant it to look like his friend so much, but he had wanted to design the gown for a certain body type and the similarities were hard to hide. 

“I... uh... didn’t want to stick to conventional models for things.” Scrubbing a hand through his hair, Grantaire laughed. “It’s proving to be sort of problematic, because now I can’t find models. And if I don’t have models, I don’t have measurements, and if I don’t have measurements I can’t actually _make_ any of this shit, and –” 

“R, breathe.” 

Drawing a shuddery breath, Grantaire dropped his face into his hands for a second, aware that he had been rambling, the stress leaking out in rapid words, clipped and cutting, slicing into his own sanity bit by bit. “Sorry,” he said, forcing himself to look back up, knowing that if he didn’t he would stay there, hiding his face until Enjolras gave up and left. “I might be freaking out a little. I’m running out of time.” 

Enjolras looked at him for a long moment, then laced their fingers together again. Grantaire stared down at their hands, wide-eyed. This wasn’t Enjolras simply not letting go. This was Enjolras reaching for Grantaire, and he wasn’t sure what to do with that information. 

“You do realize you have an amazingly dependent group of friends who would all jump at the chance to model for you, right?” Enjolras asked, finally, head tilted endearingly, curls falling into his face. 

Grantaire chuckled, shaking his head. “Eponine said that same thing, nearly word for word.” 

“That’s because it’s true.” 

“I know it is. I just feel like if I have to ask my friends to model for me, I’m undermining the entire idea of having diverse body types. How much of an impact does it really make if I just use my friends? If I can‘t find models where the men are willing to wear gowns and the women are willing to wear ripped-up shirts with a suit jacket and combat boots? Everyone will claim I designed things my friends wanted, not what the fashion scene needs to move forward. How much help is that, really?” 

Grantaire regretted his words almost immediately. Saying them out loud made it harder to ignore the fact that he was convinced that he wasn’t going to make any difference at all. His old levels of cynicism rearing up and trying to smother his ideas before they got off the ground. He had come a long way since their university years, and he had let himself hope that in this, at least, he could have an impact, but the reality of it was starting to catch up with him, and only Enjolras could have gotten him to admit to it. 

“More of an impact than if it doesn’t happen at all,” Enjolras said, free hand coming up and brushing curls out of Grantaire’s eyes, blue eyes meeting his own. “What you’re doing is brilliant, and it would be a shame not to see it happen fully. Ask our friends. You’ll have more time to find professional models for your next show.” 

Daring, terrified, sure that even if he was wrong they would survive, Grantaire tugged their joined hands until he could press a kiss to Enjolras’ knuckles. “Even you?” 

The smile that bloomed across Enjolras’ face was blinding, and Grantaire watched it rise, basking in the warmth it threw off, until Enjolras leaned in and pressed a small kiss at the corner of Grantaire’s mouth, making Grantaire draw a sharp breath that smelled like Enjolras. 

“Especially me.” 

Reaching for his sketchbook, Grantaire grinned. “Then let me show you the gown you inspired.”


End file.
